1. Field of the Invention
The present invention, in general relates to luggage and, more particularly, to devices and systems that are adapted for use with automated baggage handling systems and which are of use in identifying and locating the rightful owner of an article of luggage.
When traveling, luggage is too often either lost or delayed. While this may occur whenever an owner is separated from his luggage it is an especially troublesome situation when traveling by airplane. As such, airlines attach tags and/or labels to pieces of luggage to aid in identifying the owner and the ultimate intended destination of the luggage.
For example, some airlines attach a bar coded label to a suitable location, such as to a handle of an article of luggage during xe2x80x9ccheck-inxe2x80x9d. Data is entered at that time into a computer system of the airline as to the destination of the owner and therefore also the destination of the luggage including the intended flights that the owner and the luggage are to take.
Then, as the luggage is mechanically conveyed into the baggage (i.e., luggage) handling areas of the airport, bar code scanners will periodically scan the bar code labels, perform a xe2x80x9clook-upxe2x80x9d accessing the data base of the airline""s computer system and then direct the luggage via a system of various conveyors and baggage transport personnel to its intended flight of departure (or upon arriving to the appropriate location for retrieval) where it is loaded as cargo. These types of systems are generally referred to as xe2x80x9cautomated baggage (or luggage) handling systemsxe2x80x9d.
While these types of systems often works well, they do include, and therefore suffer from, certain disadvantages.
For one thing, when an article of luggage (i.e., a suitcase or a garment bag) is misplaced, it likely will not depart on its intended flight. Even worse, it can depart on a flight that is traveling to an errant location, possibly taking the luggage even further away from its intended destination.
There is no way to predict how soon each and every error that results in misplacing or misdirecting an article of luggage can be corrected. In some cases the articles of luggage are lost for days. Sometimes, they are never found and sometimes, when found, they can never be reunited with their proper owners.
For example, if a person is traveling on business and the nature of his business requires that he travel to many locations, he may only be intending to stay at any particular location for a day or two or perhaps for only a fraction of a day.
A several day delay in locating that person""s luggage can be severe as is described in greater detail hereinafter.
The person can leave the hotel or location of a business meeting, for example, where he said he would be staying at well before the luggage is recovered and can be delivered to that hotel or location. There is risk that as he travels to other locations, the logistics involved will simply prevent his lost luggage from ever being returned to him. This is because it may never catch up to him as he travels from location to location.
Hopefully, there will be an address label affixed to the luggage that identifies the permanent residence of the owner so that eventually, it can be delivered to him. Still, this is of no avail to the traveler who is separated from his luggage while he travels.
No matter how well intended is the attempt to return his luggage, it simply may not possible to anticipate many days in advance where the person will be at some time in the future. If the person is staying only briefly at each location and is traveling from location to location or if his travel plans are volatile and subject to change at any moment, the mere act of trying to convey a lost piece of luggage to that person may well result in sending it to where he was and never to where he is.
Eventually, the process will be aborted because it simply becomes excessively cost prohibitive and the luggage and all of its contents will not be reunited with its proper owner, at least not while he is traveling and perhaps, never. Recompense will be made in accordance with agreements and the liability of the carrier, in this example the airline.
Accordingly, there will be considerable added expense that is incurred by the airline as it attempts to locate and then deliver the lost article to its owner. Add to this the fact that there will be an added expense, perhaps substantial, when a final financial settlement for damages is made if the luggage is not returned in due course of time and the owner is forced to replace the contents (as may well occur while traveling).
Add to that also the inconvenience and emotional upset that is experienced by the owner and it is obvious that everyone loses in this instance. The owner may experience ill feelings and simply not wish to travel by that particular carrier again.
This rather common type of a reaction in response to an airline having lost their luggage is likely to add further cost to the airline because it will experience a loss in future revenues because that person will simply avoid using that airline in the future.
Other disadvantages are associated with mechanically having to produce an additional identifying tag or label and of having to affix the tag or label to the luggage.
This increases the time that is required for xe2x80x9ccheck-inxe2x80x9d, a problem that is all too well known by air travelers. It also adds expense to the airline in that they must first produce the tag or label (for example, the bar coded label) and then affix it properly to the article of luggage. This is a significant issue to the airlines and it is discussed in greater detail hereinafter.
By attaching the tag or the label to the luggage, it is generally assumed that the airline incurs an added liability to the extent that the tag or label that is applied by them should be affixed properly and that it should therefore remain attached to the luggage throughout its useful life, which typically includes one or more airline flights from a particular departure location until it reaches a particular destination location at which time it is to be reclaimed by the owner. Once reclaimed, it will have served its purpose.
Therefore, if the tag or label should be torn or if it should happen to fall off, the airline may be held liable for not properly affixing it to the luggage in the first place.
Any tag or label that an airline may attach is of necessity temporary. Previously, a string or an elastic strap was commonly used to secure the tag or label to the luggage by passing the string or strap through a loop or through a handle that is attached to and a part of the luggage.
While either of these methods may still be used on occasion, a more common current way to secure the label (i.e., the bar coded label) to the luggage is by passing the label through the luggage handle and securing a first end of the label to a remaining end by the use of an adhesive, thereby forming a loop around the handle.
The object, as mentioned hereinabove, is that the tag or label should remain affixed to the article of luggage until it is reclaimed by the owner. At that time it must be readily removable by the owner.
It would obviously become untenable if each tag or label were attached in such a manner so as to render it difficult, if not impossible, for the owner to remove. Not only would a plurality of xe2x80x9cleft-overxe2x80x9d tags and labels look unsightly, but they would tend to increase the potential that confusion and a xe2x80x9cmiss-readingxe2x80x9d of the current tag or label might occur on some subsequent flight.
Therefore, there is an inevitable contradiction of needs. On the one hand a tag or label that is durable is needed while on the other one that is also easily and readily removable is needed. Both needs, as they relate to a temporary label, cannot be simultaneously optimally satisfied. Compromise is required.
These problems, though discussed primarily for air travel, relate to all modalities of travel. Luggage may be lost by any carrier or by any responsible person at any time. It does not matter who the responsible party is, whether it is the carrier or the owner directly. The above described problems remain unsolved whenever an article of luggage is separated from its owner.
These types of problems relate to all types of luggage and the invention, as described in greater detail hereinafter, relates to all types of luggage as well. Some of the more common types of luggage include suitcases, garment bags, trunks, carry-on bags, soft-sided luggage, hard-sided luggage, and other specially types of cases, for example gun cases.
When the term xe2x80x9cluggagexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cluggage bagxe2x80x9d or any similar term is used in this specification, it is intended to refer to any and to all of these various types and forms of luggage.
There are other luggage-related issues, aside from the return of lost luggage items, that cause problems for the airlines and possibly for certain other carriers as well. As was briefly discussed hereinabove, the printing of the bar code label (sometimes known as a xe2x80x9cbag tagxe2x80x9d) for each article of luggage that is xe2x80x9cchecked inxe2x80x9d is expensive and, as already mentioned, time consuming.
Both the material (i.e., label stock) to print the adhesive bar code labels, the cost to purchase and maintain the label printers, entering this information into a data base, and the time necessary to print the labels and to attach them to the various articles of luggage increase the costs that must be born by every air traveler. Each time a person elects to travel by air, a portion of the expense in doing so must cover these costs.
Yet it is absolutely necessary that any solution intended to address these problems and to reduce the expense of baggage handling for the airlines must be adapted for use with automated baggage handling systems. An increasing number of airlines at an increasing number of airports are relying upon automated baggage handling systems (such as those that utilize bar code reading systems) along with automated conveyor systems and the like that read the labels and automatically route the luggage to the proper airline (i.e., airplane) upon departure and, on occasion, to the proper baggage claim area upon return.
Any solution must therefore be adaptable to integrate with automated luggage handling systems. If the solution is an asset to automated luggage handling systems and if it saved the airlines from having to print bar code labels and affix them to the luggage items, that would be of great benefit and value to the airline industry as well as to other types of carriers.
Accordingly there exists today a need for a traceable luggage bag and system to aid in the conveyance of a luggage bag and which is also useful in reuniting that article of luggage with its owner should it happen to be lost or delayed.
Clearly, such a device and system would be especially useful and desirable.
2. Description of Prior Art
Improvements relating to luggage are, in general, known. For example, the following patents describe various types of these devices:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,849 to Klingen, Jan. 6, 1987;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,707,592 to Ware, Nov. 17, 1987;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,051,55 to Wolfram, Sep. 24, 1991;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,646,592 to Tuttle, Jul. 8, 1997;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,866,888 to Bravman et al., Feb. 2, 1999;
U.S. Pat. No. 5,870,711 to Huffman, Feb. 9, 1999; and
U.S. Pat. No. 5,920,053 to DeBrouse, Jul. 6, 1999.
While the structural arrangements of the above described devices, at first appearance, have similarities with the present invention, they differ in material respects. These differences, which will be described in more detail hereinafter, are essential for the effective use of the invention and which admit of the advantages that are not available with the prior devices.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes an article of luggage with means for providing a permanent identification that is attached thereto.
It is also an important object of the invention to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes an article of luggage with a unique bar code identification that is permanently attached thereto.
Another object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes an article of luggage with a unique identifying microchip that is permanently attached thereto.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes an article of luggage with a plurality of permanent identifiers, such as a plurality of microchips or bar code labels that are each permanently attached thereto.
Still yet another object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes a data base of information regarding the owner of an article of luggage and which is accessible by authorized users to trace both ownership of the luggage and the location of the owner at any given time including the present, past, or where it is anticipated the owner will be in the future.
Yet another important object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that provides a permanent identifier attached to an article of luggage that provides a linkage, via a data base, with the owner of that article of luggage.
Still yet another important object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes a permanent identification that is attached by the manufacturer to an article of luggage.
One still further object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes a unique identification number permanently attached to a luggage bag that can be used for the normal routing of the luggage, such as by an airline.
One still further important object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that is able to correlate travel itinerary plans with a unique identification number that is permanently attached to the luggage bag.
One still further especially important object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes a unique identification number permanently attached to a luggage bag that is adaptable for use with automated baggage handling systems that are used by airlines at airports to route (i.e., convey) the luggage bag where desired.
One further especially useful object of the invention is to provide a traceable luggage bag and system that includes a unique identification number permanently attached to a luggage bag that provides automated identification (i.e., correlation) of a traveler with the luggage bag and is adaptable for use with the tracking and control systems of automated baggage handling systems of an airline.
Briefly, a traceable luggage bag and system that is constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention has a permanent and unique identification number (i.e., an xe2x80x9cIDxe2x80x9d) attached to at least one location of an article of luggage by the manufacturer. The identification number may be of any format as desired such as a bar code or an embedded microchip. A data base is maintained which uses the identification number to locate a xe2x80x9cfilexe2x80x9d that relates to the owner. The owner updates the file by placing a telephone call to the data base regarding his future travel plans. This can be done via a modem and a direct telephone call to the data base (either automated or speaking directly to a data base representative) or over the Internet. The information supplied may include the name, telephone, and address of the hotel(s) the owner will be staying at, the dates he will be there, when he will be leaving and other locations and dates that indicate where he will be at and when he will be there. This information can be updated by the owner at any time, for example, should travel plans change. Any other relevant information, such as an alternate contact can also be supplied and maintained in the owner""s file for that article of luggage (i.e., in the data base). This information can be provided by the owner or by his representative, for example, by his travel agent. An authorized user, such as an airline, scans the permanent unique identification number at check-in. There is no need for them to affix another tag or label to the luggage bag. The authorized user then periodically scans the unique identification number and relies upon that to make internal routing decisions, for example, to determine to which airplane the luggage should be directed. If, for any reason the luggage bag should be lost or delayed, in an attempt to locate the present whereabouts of the owner, the authorized user can access the data base to determine the present and anticipated future location of the owner and, using that information, can arrange for the most advantageous conveyance possible of the luggage bag back to its owner in a timely manner. Appropriate passwords (i.e., PINs) are assigned to the owner and to the authorized users to permit access to the data base file. The authorized user may, for example, be permitted to access the file of the owner subsequent to entering the proper PIN but the user would not be permitted to make any changes to the file. Only the owner (or his representative) may change information in the file, such as where the owner will be and for how long.